The process of leasing an apartment to a tenant can be a complicated and risky process for the landlord. A landlord who chooses to lease real estate to a tenant runs several risks, including risks associated with the tenant not paying, damaging the property, stealing from the property, and/or disturbing other nearby tenants who lease from the same landlord, all of which may be detrimental to the landlord. These risks are inherent to leasing and renting and landlords are typically aware of these risks. Consequently, several methods and services are utilized by landlords to minimize possible risks by screening tenants.
Tenant screening is common service utilized by landlords for property leasing. Often a landlord will require personal information from a potential tenant and with the information the landlord may, personally or through a screening service, perform a background check on the tenant, obtain credit history, bankruptcy history, and/or obtain some limited information in regard to court orders. The screening process, although helpful, does not always provide sufficient information to the landlord to confidently enter contractual agreements with tenants who will uphold their end of the agreement.
Screening services by third parties are often more complete and provide a better idea to the landlord of the risks associated with a potential tenant. Often a third party screening service is able to provide the landlord, for a fee, information showing statewide eviction history, nationwide criminal history, and/or nationwide credit reports. These third party screening services provide a much more complete report on the risks associated with a potential tenant; however, they do not provide a comprehensive history of the tenant and therefore may fail to provide some useful information related to the potential tenant. For example, current tenant screening processes may not provide a landlord with information regarding the damage the tenant had done to a previously leased property, whether the tenant pays on time, whether the tenant is respectful to others or is a disturbance, and other information that may be pertinent to the landlord's decision.
As currently available, landlords are unable to acquire the desired information to confidently lease property to a potential tenant without significant risk. Current systems and methods fail to provide a comprehensive tenant history allowing the landlord to make a decision fully aware of the history of the tenant.